STEAG plant going on preventive maintenance

It could be the last strait for Mindanao on tight power supply scenario, and in the next few days, part of the trigger could be the scheduled preventive maintenance for the 210-megawatt Steag State Power Inc. (SPI) coal plant in Misamis Oriental.

But plant operator SPI has qualified that the facility’s downtime was carefully planned and properly coordinated with system operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

It might also be helpful for the Mindanao grid that the programmed maintenance activities are happening at a time when summer season is still not at its peak – or the period when the hydro facilities being the main source of power for Mindanao, are not yet on cyclical downtrend on their generation.

In a statement to the media, SPI power plant manager Dr. Carsten Evers has specified that unit 1 of the Mindanao coal plant will be out from the system on February 19 to March 2, 2015; and Unit 2 on February 21-March 16 duration.

Evers added “the units will be on planned outage during the period in order for SPI to carry out the necessary unit inspection and appropriate maintenance activities.”

He stressed that “these maintenance activities are part of the company’s commitment to sustain quality service by way of ensuring that the power plant is able to optimize its long-term operations.”

Under their off-take agreements, power plants are given prescribed downtime period for maintenance works – and these are generally scheduled and judiciously coordinated with NGCP and even the government through the Department of Energy.

Evers averred “we have closely coordinated this schedule with our partners in the power industry in order to minimize any impact on the island’s volatile electricity power supply condition.”

Mindanao grid is widely-anticipated to gain additional power capacity this year to shore up its electricity supply, but full commercial commissioning of the new plants would still be in the next few months.